Cold Burn

Captain Aldana wore his field cap to the briefing. Walsh saw it the moment he came through the hatch. Aldana never wore the cap inside. The 47th had a running joke about it. The cap meant a thing was about to happen that Aldana wanted on the record but did not want on paper. The cap was on the table now, peak forward, exactly aligned with the seam of the steel surface. Reyes was already there. He was on his feet because his right knee did not bend the way it had bent two weeks ago in Foxglove Pass, and sitting down meant getting back up, and getting back up cost him. He had not said this. Walsh had watched him do it twice in the corridor on the way to the briefing room and knew it anyway. Aldana said, "Sit down, Sergeant." "I'm fine, sir."

"Sit down anyway."

Reyes sat without comment. He did it with the practised flatness of someone refusing to show pain in a briefing room. Walsh stood at his shoulder and felt the slip-pocket inside his coveralls press against his sternum. The folded paper was three days old. The seal across the top edge was Captain Aldana's. Walsh had been given the envelope at the Foxglove debrief and told to keep it on his person until he was told otherwise. He had not been told otherwise. He thought it was Reyes' promotion order. He had not opened it. The seal was intact. O'Brien was the last one in. The crew chief came through the hatch with her cold-weather coveralls under one arm and a tablet under the other. She put both on the table with the careful deliberation of a woman who had already decided to lose a fight and wanted the loss in writing. Aldana said, "Sergeant Reyes. Your section is on relief rotation to Helios-3 outpost, Tantalus-7. Wheels up in eighty minutes."

Reyes did not move. "Relief," he said. "Yes, sir."

"That is what the deployment paperwork says."

"Understood, sir."

"Sergeant. The deployment order says relief. The vehicle bay loadout list says light kit only. The orbital cover shows our supporting platform offline for routine maintenance. I am not telling you what to do with that information. I am telling you it is on the paperwork."

O'Brien set her tablet face down on the table. The motion was very quiet. "Captain," she said. "I have a fuel-pump anomaly on the dropship. I would like eight hours to investigate."

"Crew Chief O'Brien."

"Eight hours, sir. Six. Four."

"Crew Chief, the dropship is rated."

"Sir. I am telling you in writing that I have not yet completed my pre-flight."

Aldana looked at her. O'Brien looked back. The cap stayed where it was on the table, peak forward, perfectly aligned. "Sign the loadout list, Chief."

She signed. She did not look at Walsh when she did it. Walsh felt the folded paper in his slip-pocket and did not put his hand on it. "Sergeant Reyes," Aldana said. "Walsh, Marsh, Stanic, Sayed, Vasquez, Chen, you have the deployment. The 47th has not had a relief rotation in eleven months. Take it. Bring my section back."

Reyes said, "Sir." "Walsh. You'll want to hear this."

Walsh straightened. "Yes, sir."

"Helios-3 has three domes, one reactor, twelve UEF research staff under contract to the Tantalus weather service. They went quiet at oh-four-hundred local six days ago. The duress carrier is up. The carrier reads as research-outpost standard."

"Yes, sir."

"The orbital cover platform is down. I do not know why. I am not authorised to know why. The maintenance order is signed off at a level above the Tantalus theatre."

Reyes did not look at the captain. He was looking at the cap on the table. Walsh asked, "Captain. Why is the cover platform offline."

"I just told you, Private. I am not authorised to know."

Walsh exhaled. "Understood, sir."

"Anything else from you, Walsh."

"No, sir."

"Good. Sergeant, get your section to the dropship. Chief O'Brien will pre-flight under protest. The 47th Misfit Marines have a relief rotation and the weather window is six hours from closing. Move."

Reyes stood. He did it without showing the knee. Walsh did not watch him do it because watching him do it would have been worse than letting him do it. They left the briefing room. The hatch sealed behind them with the soft pressure-hiss of a bulkhead that had been resealed too many times. O'Brien fell in beside Walsh in the corridor. "Tell Marsh she's late on her first deployment if she's not in the bay in nine minutes," she said. "I'll tell her."

"And one more thing, Walsh."

She stopped him with two fingers on his elbow. Her cold-weather coveralls had a streak of black grease across the chest, low and deliberate, mark a crew chief puts on her own kit when she wants to remember which shift she was on when she signed for the bird. The streak was fresh. "Private. The cover platform is not offline for maintenance."

"Copy," he said.

"That is all I am going to say. Get your sergeant to the bay."

She turned and walked. Walsh stood in the corridor long enough to lose the line of her shoulders. Then he ran to catch Reyes. The vehicle bay smelled of cold grease and ammonia. Marsh was there already, new intake, eighteen years old, narrow face, watchful eyes. She had her coveralls on and her ruck packed and she was sitting on the deck plate next to her ruck with her back against a stanchion, reading a paperback she had folded in half along the spine. She closed it when she saw Walsh and stood up. "Private Marsh," he said. "I'm Walsh."

"Private Walsh," she replied. Her voice was flat and steady. "I'm with your section."

"Yeah. Tantalus. Pack cold."

"I packed cold."

"Good," he said.

Stanic was checking his charge cases two stanchions down. He had three of them open on the deck and he was reading the firing chips one after another with the patience of someone told too often that his charges would not work in Tantalus cold. Walsh did not interrupt him. Reyes came up behind Walsh's shoulder. The sergeant moved without weight on the right knee and the limp was hidden inside the rhythm of a man stepping over kit on a busy deck. He spoke without looking at Walsh. "Section. On the bird."

His voice carried. It was not loud. It was the flat command voice that he had used in Foxglove to hold a squad together under mortar fire. The section heard it the way the section had always heard it, and Vasquez was on his feet first and Chen was next and Sayed had his tablet stowed before Walsh had moved. "Walsh, you're with me."

"Copy, Sarge."

"On the bird. Now."

Walsh got on the bird. He did not check his slip-pocket. He could feel the folded paper against his sternum and he could feel the seal under it and he could feel the cold of the dropship's deck plate through his boots. He climbed into his harness and sealed it, and the dropship's ramp came up, and the door lights went green, and through the port window the polar dawn was bleeding green and white across the Tantalus snow, and Sayed beside him flipped his tablet open and looked at the orbital relay logs. "Walsh, look at this."

"What've you got, Sayed."

"The rescue-team ETA on the cover advisory."

"What about it."

"It lands eight hours after the cover platform goes offline. Eight hours."

Walsh looked at the tablet. He read it twice. "Sayed. Eight hours is not a maintenance window. That is a kill-window."

By the time the cabin lights dropped to amber, Reyes had leaned forward and made the small hard nod from Foxglove Pass, the one that meant they were inside it now, and the duress carrier from Helios-3 stayed dead on the scope.